Boat International - June 2018

The judges

Sir Charles Dunstone

Executive chairman

of TalkTalk Group

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Writer, broadcaster

and campaigner

Professor Alex David Rogers

ProfessorofConservation

Biology, University of Oxford

Professor Callum Roberts

Marine conservation biologist,

University of York

George Duffield

Co-founder of

Blue Marine Foundation

Peter Lürssen

CEO, Lürssen

Professor Annette Broderick

ProfessorofMarineConservation,

University of Exeter

Romain Troublé

Executivedirectorofthe

Tara Expeditions Foundation

Activist

LEWIS PUGH

Founder,the Lewis Pugh Foundation

A maritime lawyer by profession, as well as the

UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador, ocean

advocate and endurance swimmer, Lewis Pugh

is best known for his superhuman ability to

survive immersion in near-freezing water.

He uses this talent to publicise the plight of the

polar oceans through “Speedo diplomacy”,

which he defines as “a fair bit of swimming, and

a great deal of listening”.

The 48-year-old has completed two swims in

the Ross Sea. The first, in February 2015, was of

Cape Adare, where he covered 540 metres in

10 minutes in water with a temperature of -1.7C.

The air was -4C. Six days later, he swam 330

metres in the Bay of Whales. The water was -1C;

the air was -11C, and in the wind it felt like -37C.

Delighted by the subsequent designation of the

Ross Sea as an MPA, he’s not stopping there.

“Our Antarctica 2020 campaign is about

expanding that protection with three more

MPAs, so that the entire protected area is bigger

than the continent of Australia,” he says.

The Ross Sea is home to 38 per cent of the

world’s Adélie penguins, 26 per cent of

Emperor penguins and seven species of

fish that are found nowhere else, as well

as being an invaluable source of research

as the least spoiled ocean on the planet

Co-chairs

Sacha Bonsor

Editor-in-chief ofBoat International

Charles Clover
Executive director of
PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN WELLER; GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY Blue Marine Foundation